New favorable factors are supporting the current historical high of gold prices. With no signs of slowing down in the gold bull market, investment banking giants Morgan Stanley (Morgan Stanley), Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs have all released their latest forecasts for gold prices in 2025 and beyond.

Amy Gower, a metals and mining commodity strategist at Morgan Stanley, said on Monday that gold prices have been hitting historic highs for quite some time now, and whenever analysts predict a peak, gold prices will further rise.

She said, "I think this is because there are two different stories driving gold. One is physical demand, which truly began to shift in 2022 when we saw central banks buying more gold. Their purchase rates have doubled compared to the previous decade, and this situation has been ongoing. In recent months, investors' demand for physical gold bars, coins, and even ETFs has begun to rise. This is actually new capital flowing into gold, and it can be said that there is still a lot of capital to flow in

Gower stated that Morgan Stanley also expects the macro environment for gold to improve relative to stocks and bonds. She said, "In a high interest rate environment, gold faces a difficult macro background, so when interest rates actually fall, this can be said to be a favorable factor for gold

As long as the physical gold price can support it and macro factors come into play, we will say that gold has not yet peaked

When asked about the interest rate environment, Gower said that currently, the direction of interest rates is more important than the level of interest rates themselves.

She said, "Compared to the level before this interest rate hike cycle, interest rates are still high, so this is actually about the direction of progress. Has it already peaked? Or is it generally declining? This does make gold relatively more competitive. This year may have a slight pause, which is why physical demand is still important, so we also need to see this support. Those ETFs (capital inflows) have just begun, holding gold ETFs, so we hope this can continue and believe that this round of upward trend will continue to have support

Gower was also asked how high her team believes gold prices can go in the current environment, and whether the upward trend at such a high price level will self limit. She acknowledges that a bull market requires some stability.

She said, "We believe that gold prices will rise to $3300 to $3400 per ounce this year. Whenever commodity prices rise, we do start to worry about demand being disrupted, especially when certain things are developing very rapidly. For example, jewelry, which is about twice the annual purchasing scale of central banks around the world. Usually, when you go to buy jewelry, you have a budget and you don't consider how much gold you must buy, so you will naturally get this effect. You will also get more recycled supply

She added, "Even the central bank, we have seen the Reserve Bank of India pause in December last year and February this year. I think we may need to see some stability before this trend can continue

Max Layton, Global Head of Commodity Research at Citigroup, stated over the weekend that Citigroup also expects gold prices to continue to rise.

He said, "The most important thing is that the fundamental factors driving the bull market in gold still exist and will continue to drive up the price of gold. Our basic judgment is that the price of gold will rise to $3200 per ounce in the coming months. If the US economic growth environment is more worrying than our basic judgment, the price of gold may rise to $3500 per ounce

When asked what factors Citigroup believes will drive buying to break through these unknown levels, he admitted it will be central banks and ETF investors from various countries, but he said that US trade policy may be a new driving force for buying.

He said, "Especially President Trump and his team, they mentioned some quite high overall tariff figures on April 2nd. In the next three to six months, even if half of these tariffs are implemented, from a global growth perspective and from a US growth perspective, it will be worrying. In our view, this will consolidate the continuation of the gradual slowdown in US economic growth we have seen in the past few years

He added, 'In the past, we often saw an increase in savings rates and an increase in demand for ETFs, both driven by precautionary savings by households.'. We believe that this will drive the next phase of growth in the next one or two quarters

Goldman Sachs has given an extremely optimistic (although unlikely) forecast: gold prices may rise above $4000 per ounce by the end of 2025.

Goldman Sachs has revised its gold price forecast for 2025, raising it from the previous estimate of $3100 per ounce to $3300 per ounce. However, under severe market pressure, they believe that gold prices may exceed $4200 per ounce by the end of 2025, and may even exceed $4500 per ounce by 2026.